Tamara L. Stachowicz - Melungeon Portraits: Exploring Kinship and Identity

CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN STUDIES

1. Memoirs of Grassy Creek: Growing Up in the Mountains on the VirginiaNorth Carolina Line. Zetta Barker Hamby. 1998

2. The Pond Mountain Chronicle: Self-Portrait of a Southern Appalachian Community. Edited by Leland R. Cooper and Mary Lee Cooper. 1998

3. Traditional Musicians of the Central Blue Ridge: Old Time, Early Country, Folk and Bluegrass Label Recording Artists, with Discographies. Marty McGee. 2000

4. W.R. Trivett, Appalachian Pictureman: Photographs of a Bygone Time. Ralph E. Lentz II. 2001

5. The People of the New River: Oral Histories from the Ashe, Alleghany and Watauga Counties of North Carolina. Edited by Leland R. Cooper and Mary Lee Cooper. 2001

6. John Fox, Jr., Appalachian Author. Bill York. 2003

7. The Thistle and the Brier: Historical Links and Cultural Parallels Between Scotland and Appalachia. Richard Blaustein. 2003

8. Tales from Sacred Wind: Coming of Age in Appalachia. The Cratis Williams Chronicles. Cratis D. Williams. Edited by David Cratis Williams and Patricia D. Beaver. 2003

9. Willard Gayheart, Appalachian Artist. Willard Gayheart and Donia S. Eley. 2003

10. The Forest City Lynching of 1900: Populism, Racism, and White Supremacy in Rutherford County, North Carolina. J. Timothy Cole. 2003

11. The Brevard Rosenwald School: Black Education and Community Building in a Southern Appalachian Town, 19201966. Betty J. Reed. 2004

12. The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music. Edited by Charles K. Wolfe and Ted Olson. 2005

13. Community and Change in the North Carolina Mountains: Oral Histories and Profiles of People from Western Watauga County. Compiled by Nannie Greene and Catherine Stokes Sheppard. 2006

14. Ashe County: A History; A New Edition. Arthur Lloyd Fletcher. 2009 [2006]

15. The New River Controversy; A New Edition. Thomas J. Schoenbaum. Epilogue by R. Seth Woodard. 2007

16. The Blue Ridge Parkway by Foot: A Park Rangers Memoir. Tim Pegram. 2007

17. James Still: Critical Essays on the Dean of Appalachian Literature. Edited by Ted Olson and Kathy H. Olson. 2008

18. Owsley County, Kentucky, and the Perpetuation of Poverty. John R. Burch, Jr. 2008

19. Asheville: A History. Nan K. Chase. 2007

20. Southern Appalachian Poetry: An Anthology of Works by 37 Poets. Edited by Marita Garin. 2008

21. Ball, Bat and Bitumen: A History of Coalfield Baseball in the Appalachian South. L.M. Sutter. 2009

22. The Frontier Nursing Service: Americas First Rural Nurse-Midwife Service and School. Marie Bartlett. 2009

23. James Still in Interviews, Oral Histories and Memoirs. Edited by Ted Olson. 2009

24. The Millstone Quarries of Powell County, Kentucky. Charles D. Hockensmith. 2009

25. The Bibliography of Appalachia: More Than 4,700 Books, Articles, Monographsand Dissertations, Topically Arranged and Indexed. Compiled by John R. Burch, Jr. 2009

26. Appalachian Childrens Literature: An Annotated Bibliography. Compiled by Roberta Teague Herrin and Sheila Quinn Oliver. 2010

27. Southern Appalachian Storytellers: Interviews with Sixteen Keepers of the Oral Tradition. Edited by Saundra Gerrell Kelley. 2010

28. Southern West Virginia and the Struggle for Modernity. Christopher Dorsey. 2011

29. George Scarbrough, Appalachian Poet: A Biographical and Literary Study with Unpublished Writings. Randy Mackin. 2011

30. The Water-Powered Mills of Floyd County, Virginia: Illustrated Histories, 17702010. Franklin F. Webb and Ricky L. Cox. 2012

31. School Segregation in Western North Carolina: A History, 1860s1970s. Betty Jamerson Reed. 2011

32. The Ravenscroft School in Asheville: A History of the Institution and Its People and Buildings. Dale Wayne Slusser. 2014

33. The Ore Knob Mine Murders: The Crimes, the Investigation and the Trials. Rose M. Haynes. 2013

34. New Art of Willard Gayheart. Willard Gayheart and Donia S. Eley. 2014

35. Public Health in Appalachia: Essays from the Clinic and the Field. Edited by Wendy Welch. 2014

36. The Rhetoric of Appalachian Identity. Todd Snyder. 2014

37. African American and Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia: A History, 19001965. Phoebe Ann Pollitt. 2016

38. A Hospital for Ashe County: Four Generations of Appalachian Community Health Care. Janet C. Pittard. 2016

39. Dwight Diller: West Virginia Mountain Musician. Lewis M. Stern. 2016

40. The Brown Mountain Lights: History, Science and Human Nature Explain an Appalachian Mystery. Wade Edward Speer. 2017

41. Richard L. Davis and the Color Line in Ohio Coal: A Hocking Valley Mine Labor Organizer, 18621900. Frans H. Doppen. 2016

42. The Silent Appalachian: Wordless Mountaineers in Fiction, Film and Television. Vicki Sigmon Collins. 2017

43. The Trees of Ashe County, North Carolina. Doug Munroe. 2017

44. Melungeon Portraits: Exploring Kinship and Identity. Tamara L. Stachowicz. 2018

CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN STUDIES, 44

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

All photographs are from the authors collection.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-3163-9

2018 Tamara L. Stachowicz. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover image 2018 Shutterstock; inset Addie Gibson, about 15 years old, circa 1938

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

To my husband of 30 years, Dr. David Stachowicz

In memory of my brother,
James Jimmy Michael Campbell (19672011),
and my dear friend Mrs. Lucille Johnson (19202016)

Sylvia Ray, Arlene Walsh, Kateri Petrie, Josef Stachowicz, Angela Blankenship, Connie Smith, Logan Johnson, Keith Johnson, Rachel Bray, Wilma King, Katie Hillison, Shirley Ellis, Anna Partin, William Isom, Joanne Pezzullo, Jack Goins, Darlene Wilson, Katherine VandeBrake, Wayne Winkler, Brent Kennedy, Anita Puckett, Paul Johnson, Carolyn Kenny, Lize Booysen, and Dara Culhane.

In this book, I lay out a foundation based on the historical and academic writings that have so far informed research on Melungeons. Some of these are older sources that have been often recounted, at times like a childrens game of telephone: with slight changes and reinterpretations as the time or cultural context demands. The portraits included are specifically and intentionally created to empower those who might not otherwise have the power to enter the conversation about their own thoughts on a Melungeon identity. They are called portraits as they are to preserve the essence of an individual in the manner of painting with words.